Residents were updated Jan. 28 at a community workshop on the De Anza Revitalization Plan, a reimagining of what Mission Bay Park’s approximately 4,000 acres of beaches, parklands, picnic areas, marinas, resort hotels and SeaWorld could become.
The revitalization plan is part of an ongoing amendment to the Mission Bay Park Master Plan, which guides usage of the popular regional park. Mission Bay is one of San Diego’s premiere tourist and recreational destinations.
Project consultant Brooke Peterson, of PlaceWorks, noted De Anza’s revitalization is “one of the most important planning projects in the city of San Diego.” She added public participation in the project is “an opportunity to do something really great for San Diego.”
Peterson said the goal of January’s first De Anza public workshop was to “collect your ideas about future activities and uses” for the regional park.
Consultants said the project involves a three-year process while noting that locals have been “years, and for some decades, in waiting” for development of a future plan for De Anza.
Consultant Joan Isaacson of Katz & Associates said a new interactive website, deanzarevitalizationplan.com, is now available for inspection.
“We want to engage the diversity of all local stakeholders and hear their perspectives,” said Isaacson, adding that’s why the city is conducting an “open and transparent process.”
At least one person from the audience objected to the process, noting that some members selected for the De Anza Revitalization Plan Ad-Hoc Subcommittee include leaseholders in the regional park, like SeaWorld, which could be construed by some as a conflict of interest.
Following introductory remarks, planners and residents retired to Mission Bay High School’s cafeteria to review stations to talk with project reps and examine maps and other documents describing aspects of the park and discussing its “possibilities.” Guests were issued “passports” they could get stamped at the various stations, qualifying them for a raffle drawing.
The first ad hoc subcommittee meeting on the De Anza Revitalization Plan was held Dec. 9. Paul Robinson, chair of the 11-member ad hoc committee, said then that the task is to work with the city and consultants on developing a vision and guiding principles for a De Anza Revitalization Plan to amend the existing Mission Bay Park Master Plan.
The project area being revitalized is 120 acres, including a special study area in the Mission Bay Master Plan, plus the surrounding area to the north and east including ball fields, the Mission Bay golf course and portions of De Anza Cove.
The effort to redevelop the regional park was delayed by a decade-long court battle between the city and residents of the 500-unit De Anza Cove Resort mobile home park, a 75-acre park on prime real estate jutting into the water in Mission Bay Park west of Interstate 5. Ultimately, the city reached a $3.6 million settlement agreement on one of three lawsuits involving current and former mobile home park residents allowing them to relocate. Consultants conducted a mini-workshop on Dec. 9, breaking ad hoc committee members into two small groups to brainstorm ideas on recreation, the environment and land use and activity in the regional park.
Suggestions committee members came up with for park revitalization included the need to balance park uses with available open space; to consider creating an info/interpretive center; to do a hydrology (water) study; to encourage ecologically oriented recreation; to find ways to protect and enhance the natural environment; to create more pedestrian and nonmotorized vehicle connectivity within the park; to allow coastal marshland to grow back naturally; and to re-establish a connection between the park area and Rose Creek.
The next public workshop on De Anza will be scheduled in March at a time and place to be determined.